Cornelius Hankins was born on July 12, 1863, near Guntown, Itawamba County, Mississippi, the sixth of eight children of Reverend Edward Lockee Hankins and Annie Mary (McFadden) Hankins. He contracted smallpox as a boy after his mother cared for Confederate soldiers. As a result, he was deaf until he was eight years old and had to be tutored at home.
He first studied art under E. M Gardner in Nashville. Subsequently he worked with William Merritt Chase in New York City and with Robert Henri at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. European travel supplemented these studies. He settled in Nashville in 1900 and was associated for a while with George W. Chambers in the Nashville School of Art.
He painted landscapes and still lifes as well as more than a thousand portraits. At the time of his death in Nashville in 1946, nine of his portraits were said to be in the Tennessee State Capitol, six in the Alabama, two in the Mississippi, and one in the Louisiana capitol buildings.
Tennessee Painting the Past, Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Cheekwood, 1960.
